Battle Of the Lawn Mowers

Ok. It was Wednesday that I declared to my Facebook Friends that I would mow my grass at 4:30 that afternoon.

Confession: I didn’t do it.

BUT! I did do it this morning (and it’s only like 2 and a half days later!) and that has to count for something, right?

And to be honest, now it’s done, I’m not sure why I was stalling. It was…easy. I think Saturday mid-morning is the socially acceptable time to mow one’s lawn, so I guess it was a good time for me to debut into the world of concerned and involved homeowners.

Only problem with that is, I wasn’t the only person out cutting the grass. My next door neighbor (also a woman) was pulling out her mower at the same time I was dragging mine bodily from the garage.

[Side Note: Dad got me my new wheel key and we successfully engineered the riding lawn mower into full functionality again about two weeks ago. Yay Dad!! I love you!]

Anyway. My neighbor and I were about to be mowing our yards at the same time. I feel like there has to be some unwritten etiquette that I am unaware of in this situation. Whoever gets their mower turned on first goes first. Sort of like…bowling. You don’t bowl at the same time as the people next to you. It’s rude. Right?

Also I felt like an ass with my gigantic riding lawn mower, because the woman next door was using a push mower. An ELECTRIC push mower. I am a polluting, lazy jerk.

My front yard was in the most desperate need of attention, and their front yard is facing another direction entirely, so I made for the front yard first. Maybe like 20 minutes later, I was ready to move on to the back yard and it looked like the woman next door was just making her way around her back yard fully for the first time. She was mowing against the fence our back yards share. Crap.

Her poor little electric mower was being put to the test against a whole bunch of weeds and I was about to cruise along past and shoot my chewed up grass through the fence onto her. That felt rude. But I wanted to get the show on the road! I was hot! And sweaty. And uncomfortable.

But I’m nothing if not polite in awkward situations, so I hopped off the mower and went inside to cool off. I gave her fifteen minutes and then finished up the back yard with some serious ease.

Mowing the grass is actually a very satisfying activity. An hour of work and a dramatic result. Like doing laundry or vacuuming a cat-fur-lined rug. Heck, I may even retain this chore if I ever do get the opportunity to hand it over to a spouse again. He can just use the weed eater.

Because let’s be honest. If it took me 28 years to mow the grass on my own, it’s probably going to be another 28 before I figure out how to operate a weed eater! 😉